Navigation

Who's new

Randino

Fran

Audrey

glkanter

Slavic Village ...

Subscribe

Work for a newspaper online is not covered by jurisdictional clauses which cover newspaper work

Submitted by Norm Roulet on Sat, 07/15/2006 - 11:17.

For those who find interesting the issues of newspapers versus internet based news, even when provided by the same organization - like the Cleveland Plain Dealer and Cleveland.com are both owned by Advance Communications - Jones Day was able to arbitrate that the on-line product workers were not covered by union contracts negotiated for the newspaper product - I believe the Plain Dealer if set up the same way...

Summary: The Fresno Bee has an online product, Fresnobee.com, which provides news and a host of other services over the internet. Work on this product is performed in a separate department at the Fresno Bee and employees in that department are not represented by a union. The Newspaper Guild claimed in its grievance that Guild-represented employees should be assigned the work because the on line product was really an online newspaper and under the labor contract, newspaper work must be performed by Guild-represented employees. A multiday hearing was held before Arbitrator Alexander Cohn and post-hearing briefs were filed. The Arbitrator denied the grievance and upheld the ompany's position. This decision is of great significance because it is precedent for the proposition that work for a newspaper online product is not covered by jurisdictional clauses which cover newspaper work.